Today’s Top Stories
1. Fatah appointed a potential successor for PA leader Mahmoud Abbas. Israel HaYom reports, “If PA President Mahmoud Abbas is incapacitated, Mahmoud al-Aloul will replace him as ‘acting president of Palestine’ for a period of three months until elections can be held.”
Further fueling speculation about his health, Abbas continued to pour cold water on Trump’s yet-to-be-released peace plan by cryptically saying he won’t end his life as a “traitor.” The 82-year-old Abbas was recently at Baltimore’s Johns Hopkins Hospital for what Palestinian officials called routine medical checks.
2. Huffington Post: US lawmakers seek investigation of Al Jazeera amid Israel documentary controversy.
The request, in a letter [to Attorney General Jeff Sessions] being finalized this week and shared with HuffPost by a Hill source, comes amid a controversy over Al Jazeera’s filming of a documentary on the pro-Israel lobbying community in the U.S. The network used an undercover operative to secure months of footage in 2016, revealing private interactions with various advocacy groups, lawmakers and officials. But despite promising to release the film last year after British regulators OK’d a similar project in the U.K., Al Jazeera has yet to publish the documentary.
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3. The UK Labour party belly-flopped into yet another anti-Semitism row — this one over tweets by key aide to party leader Jeremy Corbyn suggesting ‘Israel is committing genocide.’
Joss MacDonald, a Labour Party speech writer, has also branded Israel an ‘apartheid’ state and insisted people excuse its behaviour ‘because of the Holocaust.’
4. Shocking Headlines Omit ‘Israel’ From Royal Visit: Too many in the UK media made a right royal mess of their headlines announcing Prince William’s planned trip to Israel, as spotted by CUFI UK.
In the News
• IDF accused Hamas of stealing electricity from Gazans by releasing a video released a video on Sunday “allegedly showing members of the Hamas terrorist group stealing electricity from power lines leading into the southern Gaza Strip.” Coverage and video at the Times of Israel and Ynet.
• Hezbollah reportedly blocked Hamas from building a military base in Lebanon, fearing the Palestinians would drag Lebanon into war by firing rockets at Israel without Hezbollah’s knowledge.
• This bungled headline is from Reuters, where one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s motorist — or something like that. We took the liberty of fixing it cuz headlines matter.
• Guatemala to relocate its embassy to Jerusalem in May, two days after the US. President Jimmy Morales told the Jerusalem Post he also expects more countries to follow suit.
• The IDF arrested a German national for throwing rocks at soldiers during a protest in the West Bank village of Bil’in. Police said they intend to deport the 24-year-old tourist, who confessed to the charges.
• British football chief Martin Glenn is in hot water over a comment equating the Jewish star of David with the Nazi swastika.
• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former advisor, Nir Hefetz, is in talks with police to turn state’s witness in the Bezeq corruption investigation, reports Ynet. Netanyahu is suspected of giving telecom giant Bezeq regulatory benefits in exchange for positive coverage from a prominent news site owned by Bezeq’s majority shareholder. Netanyahu denies any wrongdoing.
• Police released the name of another suspect in the Bezeq affair. Eitan Tzafrir was the former chief of staff at the Communications Ministry while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu served as communications minister.
Commentary
• Here’s what else I’m reading today . . .
– Avi Issacharoff: When Nakba Day meets US embassy move day, expect fireworks in Gaza
– Ben Cohen: The House of Windsor’s Israel problem
– Giulio Meotti: Christians in Jerusalem, ask your brethen in Syria and Egypt
– Emanuele Ottolenghi: Trump should block Iran’s air corridor to Syria
– Moshe Arens: In Syria, force will prevail
– Jose María Aznar, Stephen Harper: The world must unite to stop Iran (click via Twitter)
Featured image: CC BY-SA Piotr Jankowski ; Aloul via YouTube/palwatch; typewriter CC0 Pixabay;
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